Environmental Services

“Payment for Environmental Services in the Amazon Forest: How Can Conservation and Development Be Reconciled?”, was the most frequently read article in the Journal of Environment and Development in 2010. Here is a brief reflection from the author, Simone Novotny Couto Pereira:

I was prompted to write this article as part on my MSc dissertation in Development Management at the London School of Economics. The idea of writing on Payment for Environmental Services in the Amazon actually emerged after a conversation with a friend of mine about a project she had taken part in the Brazilian Amazon a few years earlier. As a Brazilian living in London I wanted to write something about my country and thought that writing an article on environment and development could contribute to multi-disciplinary research which I think is very important. As the COP in Copenhagen was going to take place the year after I started the research, I though that writing on REDD was a useful topic not only for academics, but also for policy-makers. There were not many articles written on PES at the time I started doing the research and that also encouraged me to write on a topic that was innovative. It was quite difficult to find previous literature on ‘Bolsa Floresta’ and that made me want to research about the impact of this project.

I think research is very important especially when it is applied to the ‘real world’. When I wrote this article I wished that those making decisions that have an impact on other people’s lives could make well informed decisions and that this research would contribute to that.

I don’t know about the impact this article has had on other’s research beyond the fact that academics from various countries wrote to me asking for a copy of the article.

I’m really pleased to hear that my article was the most read article in JED 2010 and I wonder what the readers thought about it.